


Alternates

by beetle



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:25:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six Sentinel drabbles. All AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alternates

**Author's Note:**

> Notes/Spoilers/Warnings: Nope.

**Routines**  
  
“I didn’t touch it, Jim, I swear!”  
  
“Calm down, Blair -”  
  
“Please, big guy. . . forgive me?” Blair’s huge, panicked blue eyes are already welling with tears. His lower lip trembles.   
  
Jim smiles; it’s a touch strained. “Of course, I forgive you, uh -  _Chief_. Go get some sleep.”   
  
One beatific smile, then Blair dreamily shuffles off to bed.   
  
This is part of the nightly routine, the orderly/in-patient waltz in this wing. Unlike most of their patients, Blair Sandburg is lively, charming - at times shockingly lucid and blindingly intelligent. . . .  
  
Yet every night, the routine repeats.  
  
Jim Ellison doesn’t know why.  
  
  
 **Alternate Route**  
  
“Gimme a break, Sandburg!”  
  
The small grad student wilts under the arctic glare and looks down. Jim suffers a moment of total disorientation and wrongness.  
  
“Look, Jim, man -”  
  
“Detective Ellison!” Jim snaps. “And if you show up at the station again just to harass me about this - Sentinel crap, I’ll throw you in lockdown!”  
  
Jim shuffles paperwork, trying to calm himself.  
  
When he looks up again, though his patchouli/book must scent lingers, Blair Sandburg is gone.   
  
For good, this time, Jim hopes, ignoring the nauseating  _thud-thud_  behind his eyes.  
  
He goes back to his paperwork.  
  
  
 **Perks**  
  
“I didn’t touch it, Jim, I swear!”   
  
Blair closes the glass case that houses Sir Richard Burton’s  _Treatise on Sentinels_ , grinning a little too brightly.  
  
“Dr. Sandburg, just because you’re sleeping with the Curator doesn’t mean you’re allowed to open these whenever you like.”   
  
“So what  _are_  the perks of sleeping with the Curator?” Blair waggles his eyebrows. Jim gives him the dreaded  _look_.   
  
“I won’t call Campus Security on you. How’s that for perks?”  
  
“Hmm, maybe I should start sleeping with Campus Security instead of you, man.”   
  
Jim sighs and drags his giggling boyfriend out of Rainier University’s Museum.  
  
  
 **Partners**    
  
 _Gimme a break, Chief!_  
  
Sandburg mutters another lame excuse for being late. Simon doesn’t believe a single word.  
  
In the years since the thesis fiasco, Blair’s been - adjusting to life as a detective.  
  
Adjusting badly.  
  
When he gets to his desk Blair slumps in the chair, rubbing red, spacey eyes. Jim dials down scent to avoid a contact high.  
  
“Maybe you should take it easy with the booze, Chief.”  _And the pills_ , Jim thinks, but doesn’t say.  
  
Baleful, bitter flash of baby blue, then Blair’s focused on his computer.  
  
“Maybe you should lay off trying to run my life. Partner.”   
  
  
 **Bomb**  
  
“I didn’t touch it, Jim, I swear! It did that on it’s own!”  
  
The timer had suddenly jumped from 43:15 to 00:14 for no apparent reason.   
  
“I know, Chief, just - calm down.”   
  
Jim’s ice-blue eyes tick back and forth between wires, debating which to cut.   
  
 _We’re_ so _up shit creek_ , Blair thinks miserably.  
  
“In case we don’t get out of this, Chief, I love you.” Those icy eyes tick to Blair, but they’re not cold anymore.   
  
Now, they burn.  
  
Blair is utterly speechless, for the first time ever.   
  
Jim pulls Blair into a kiss as he cuts the red wire.  
  
  
 **A Friendly Game**  
  
“Gimme a break, Sandburg!  _Traveling_!”  
  
Blair dodges down-court, Jim hot on his heels, and shoots the ball. It sails beautifully through the air -  
  
“Hah! Your ass is  _mine_ , Ellison!”   
  
\- and rebounds off the backboard.   
  
“Well, that didn’t go at all the way I’d planned,” Blair notes as the ball bounces back toward him.  
  
Jim retrieves the ball and shoots it. Nothing but net. He grins at Blair.  
  
“My ass is yours, huh, Chief?”   
  
“ _So_  mine. . . everywhere  _but_  the basketball court, yeah?”   
  
The look Jim sends his way is pure sex.  
  
“Oh, yeah. How ‘bout a rematch?”


End file.
